Wednesday, July 22 (7:30pm) – Saturday, July 25 (5 pm)

Led by James Kirby Martin and Bruce Venter

HQ: Meriden, CT

Reserve a room at the Holiday Inn Express by June 22 for special rates

Conference Package: $495

Perhaps no American historical figure evokes more controversy than Benedict Arnold. He was the hero of the Revolutionary War’s greatest battle, Saratoga and three years later America’s first and most famous traitor. Indeed, he was an intricate character.

We have designed this unique America’s History tour to be able to show you two sides of this enigmatic personality. By focusing on Connecticut, we will be able to reveal Benedict Arnold as a merchant and budding military leader, a patriot who fought the British during the Danbury raid and, finally, as a traitor who in a red-coated uniform led Crown forces in a mean-spirited raid on New London. We are fortunate to have the country’s foremost Arnold biographer leading our tour.

Our first day will focus on Benedict Arnold as a patriot home on leave visiting his family in New Haven, who joined forces with Brig. Gen. David Wooster and local Connecticut militia men to fight a British raiding party bent on destroying rebel stockpiles in Danbury in April 1777. We will follow the British landing at Compo Beach in Westport to the first engagement between Williams Tryon’s 1,800 Crown troops and patriot militia. We will pass Christ Church along the British route, then make a stop at Putnam Memorial Park, a 1778 American winter encampment named for Connecticut’s other famous Revolutionary War general. We will stop at three sites of engagement near Ridgefield where patriot forces confronted Tryon’s men making their way back to the coast from Danbury. During these fights, Wooster was mortally wounded and Arnold had a horse shot from under him. Arnold tried to block the British retreat at Ridgefield, but Tryon managed to sidestep the American position and escape back to their waiting ships.

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Friday, September 25, 8am to 5pm

Leaving from Fort Ticonderoga, NY

Our Tour Leaders: James Kirby Martin and Bruce Venter

Registration Fee: $145

Fort Ticonderoga and America’s History will partner again this year to offer a one-day Revolutionary War tour in connection with the Fort’s Twelfth Annual American Revolution Seminar. Led by James Kirby Martin and Bruce Venter, the tour departs from Fort Ticonderoga’s parking lot at 8 a.m. and includes the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, a boat ride thru the Narrows of Lake Champlain, Valcour Island, and a ferry ride across Lake Champlain.

This tour takes place on the Friday of Fort Ticonderoga’s American Revolution Seminar. Please see www.fortticonderoga.org for the seminar program and details. You may take the Valcour Island tour without attending the seminar.

This tour will demonstrate Benedict Arnold’s skill as a naval commander and hero of the Patriot cause as we visit land and “on the water” sites. We will see Valcour Island from the New York shore, take a ferry ride across Lake Champlain near the site of the battle, visit the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum which has special exhibits related to Valcour Island, board the reconstructed gunboat, Philadelphia II and take a boat ride thru the Lake Champlain Narrows where Arnold fought a delaying battle with the British. We will also have the additional benefit of a marine archeologist/historian during our time at the Maritime Museum and on the boat ride. [Read more…]

 Friday, March 21 (7pm) – Sunday, March 23 (Noon)

Colonial Williamsburg Woodlands Hotel
Williamsburg, Virginia

Conference Package: $225

Edward G. Lengel, Head of Faculty: “Philadelphia is the Object in View”: George Washington at the Battle of Brandywine, 1777

James Kirby Martin: Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians’ Contribution to the American Revolution

Andrew O’Shaughnessy: First in War or First in Peace: Sir William Howe as Commander-in-Chief

Glenn Williams: Revenge and Reprisals: Irregular Warfare and the Sullivan-Clinton Campaign against the Iroquois

Todd Andrlik: Reporting the Revolutionary War: Colonial Newspapers as a Historical Record

Don Hagist: 60 Men at Yorktown: A British Light Infantry Company

David Mattern: Major General Benjamin Lincoln and the American Revolution

James L. Nelson: The Best General on Either Side: Benedict Arnold’s Naval Operations on Lake Champlain and the Chesapeake Bay

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Thursday, April 10 (7:30pm) – Saturday, April 12 (5:00pm)

Glen Allen, Virginia

Tour Leader: Bruce Venter

Registration Fee: $295

On paper, Union Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick’s plan, approved directly by Lincoln, to release some 13,000 Federal prisoners, “burn the hateful city” of Richmond and capture or kill Confederate President Jefferson Davis, had all the earmarks of success. As one Michigan officer recalled, “The rationale of the raid was a hurried ride, timely arrival, great daring, a surprise, a sudden charge without a moment’s hesitation – success.” Even Confederate cavalry commander Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton felt “the enemy could have taken Richmond” except for some rebel luck. But in execution the Kilpatrick–Dahlgren Raid was a dismal failure; and a major embarrassment to Lincoln when controversial orders were found on the dead body of the expedition’s subordinate commander, the dashing and well-connected Col. Ulric Dahlgren.

On this Sesquicentennial year of the raid, our tour will consider all aspects of the raid’s plan, its execution, the routes taken by Kilpatrick and Dahlgren and the credibility of the infamous “Dahlgren Papers.” We will retrace the raid’s original routes and discuss the decisions, mistakes and happen-stances that affected both the intrepid Federal raiders and the dogged defenders of the Confederate capital. We will focus on the tactical movements of the troops and the decisions made by the commanders on both sides. During most of the tour we will follow the same routes the troopers did in 1864.

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 Friday, June 6 (7:30pm) – Sunday, June 8 (4:00pm)

Suffolk, Virginia

Our Tour Leader: John V. Quarstein

Registration Fee: $175

In 1831 the bloodiest slave rebellion in the American South occurred in the commonwealth of Virginia’s Southampton County. Upwards of 60 white men, women and children were murdered in a few days. The revolt’s leader, Nat Turner survived a manhunt of several months, but 65 slaves suspected of being part of the Turner’s rebellion were executed. Another 200 blacks were killed by frenzied mobs and white militias. On November 11, 1831, after a six day trial on charges of “conspiring to rebel and making insurrection,” Turner was convicted, sentenced to death and hanged in Jerusalem (present-day Courtland), Virginia. Turner’s body was flayed, quartered and beheaded. White reaction was swift and decisive. In the aftermath of Turner’s revolt, Southern states enacted laws prohibiting the education of slaves and free blacks, curtailed the assembly of free blacks and required white clergymen to be present at African worship services.

Our tour leader, John Quarstein is well versed in 19th century Tidewater history. He has a special interest in Nat Turner’s Rebellion since becoming a consultant to Southampton County’s proposed museum dedicated to the legacy of Nat Turner.

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Rogers’ Rangers and the French and Indian War

Wednesday, June 11 (7:30 PM) through Saturday, June 14 (5 PM)

Our Tour Leaders: John Grenier and Bruce Venter

Registration Fee: $475

The story of Major Robert Rogers and his Rangers is familiar to those who’ve read Kenneth Roberts’ fast-paced novel Northwest Passage or saw it brought to the silver screen in 1940, starring Spencer Tracy. The riveting tale of Fort William Henry’s siege and massacre after Monro’s surrender to Montcalm is integral to James Fenimore Cooper’s classic novel Last of the Mohicans which made for several movie adaptations. But the real history of Rogers, his Rangers and the forts built along the Lake George/Lake Champlain/Upper Hudson River water corridor is even more fascinating, when all the facts are told. The Adirondack area itself provides a truly majestic backdrop for one of the bloodiest periods of America’s history. It was a crucial time as two European superpowers struggled for supremacy over territory, trade and the natural riches of North America.

Robert Rogers is a truly enigmatic figure whose “Rules of Ranging” is still studied today by elite units of our armed forces. In addition, other characters emerge from the fighting around Lake George; men such as John Stark, Israel Putnam, Paul Revere and Thomas Gage who, like Rogers, all will play supporting roles in the American Revolution twenty years later.

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 Wednesday, June 25 (7:30pm) – Saturday, June 28 (5pm)

Verona, New York

Registration Fee: $495

In 1777, the Mohawk Valley was seen as a thoroughfare in British Lt. Gen. John Burgoyne’s strategy to capture Albany and divide the colonies. One prong of his campaign plan was led by Brig. Gen. Barry St. Leger. The Oneida Indian Nation played a major role in the defeat of St. Leger’s army, by turning back the invasion at Oriskany, thus helping to raise the siege of Fort Stanwix. Likewise, to understand the divided loyalties of the Mohawk Valley and the importance of its Native residents, it is essential to know about Sir William Johnson, the most powerful man in the region before the American Revolution. Many times, Johnson was at odds with the Rev. Samuel Kirkland who ministered to the Oneidas for ten years prior to the American Revolution. Joseph Brant, the brother of Sir William’s common law wife, Molly Brant also played a major role in the war by supporting the Crown. Sandwiched between the Mohawks to the east and three other nations to the west in the Iroquois Confederacy, the Oneidas have the unheralded distinction of supporting the Patriot cause.

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